Smart sensing metamaterials integrate engineered micro- and nano-structured media with sensing, communication, and actuation functions across acoustic, optical, electromagnetic, and mechanical domains. Work in this area spans metamaterial-enabled wave control, metasurfaces, and auxetic or lattice architectures combined with MEMS, e-skins, and e-textiles to monitor physiological signals, structural integrity, and environmental conditions. These systems often employ flexible, printable, or biodegradable platforms, multiplexed readout, and self-powered operation to enable distributed, real-time, and unobtrusive measurement in wearable, industrial, underwater, and aerospace applications.
Robotics
Robots are becoming increasingly capable in vision and movement, yet touch remains one of their major weaknesses. Now, researchers have developed a miniature tactile sensor that could give robots something much closer to ...
Mar 5, 2026
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181
Engineering
Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) has created a magnetostrictive transducer (MST) probe that uses ultrasonic guided wave technology to detect corrosion in storage tanks, a process that normally requires emptying the tank ...
Mar 2, 2026
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7
Robotics
Rice becomes weaker when compressed quickly, while staying stronger under slow pressure—a discovery enabling scientists to design a new material that could be used to build "soft" robots that change stiffness automatically ...
Feb 24, 2026
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38
Engineering
Origami, the traditional Japanese art of paper folding, has received considerable attention in engineering. By applying paper-folding principles, researchers have created compact structures that are flexible, lightweight, ...
Feb 20, 2026
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17
Computer Sciences
One night in 2010, Mohit Gupta decided to try something before leaving the lab. Then a Ph.D. student at Carnegie Mellon University, Gupta was in the final days of an internship at a manufacturing company in Boston. He'd spent ...
Feb 20, 2026
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15
Engineering
Advances in ultrasound—the same imaging technology that uses sound waves to allow doctors to monitor babies in utero—are being applied by engineers at the University of California San Diego to make railroad track inspection ...
Feb 18, 2026
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17
Hi Tech & Innovation
Acoustic streaming generated by airborne ultrasonic phased arrays plays a critical role in the performance of advanced ultrasonic technologies, including midair haptic feedback, odor delivery, and acoustic levitation. Researchers ...
Feb 13, 2026
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21
Engineering
Recently, a research team from the Anhui Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, developed a fast, multi-platform compatible detection network that can "see" ...
Feb 12, 2026
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7
Consumer & Gadgets
Sometimes, cybersecurity isn't about passwords or computer chips or networks. Instead, it may be about what's on your wrist. New research led by WPI faculty members and students shows that electromagnetic signals from smartwatches ...
Feb 12, 2026
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18
Hi Tech & Innovation
It's a typical workday and you sign onto your computer. Unbeknownst to you, a high-frequency sensing system embedded in your work device is now tracking your heart rate, allowing your employer to monitor your breaks, engagement, ...
Feb 9, 2026
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